Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Home tour

We have shifted in our new place on 6jan2017. It was a whirlwind of packing & unpacking & lotsa of getting used to!

For me i felt like a part of me has lost my identity. If you recall in nov 2013, my family & i shifted out from our Aunt's place where we stayed with since 2009. We finally bought a comfortable flat with all our savings & shifted in. Then in 2014, Rodman proposed & we started planning for the wedding and that was when i realize i was doom to shift out of the house i meant to stay.

In 2015, Rodman & i got married so i left my parents' place & headed over to his Parents' place where we put up through till Dec 2016. If i did my math correctly, the longest i ever had a place/room to call my own was max 2 years?

It could be my hormones doing its dirty tricks but when i recall i haven had a proper place to feel like i truly belong, it feels as thou i havent had a proper identity to call my own. So today i am staying in this aprtment & only our 4th day in, i get this strangely foreign feeling like i better not unpack everything in case i have to pack them up again. so much for being in my home country, with my fellow family members & not feeling like i belong eh.

clar, if you are reading this, i get that feeling i just might be able to get used being away from Singapore since moving really isnt quite a big thing for me anymore.

During the course of preparing for our move. I started gluing my addict Taobao habits with the furniture sourcing. I guess by now Rodman has gotten use to me & my antics. Despite his reminder than quality matters over quantity, i wasnt buying it.

A large bulk of the materials in the house were source through Taobao. I shuttle between using Prime $2.99 & 4Px services, depending on how important the goods were to us. The sofa bed above was one such Taobao purchase that i manage to secure via Prime $2.99 prime service. A honest review of this bed that cost me an overall $132 including shipping is --> if i had a second chance i probably wont get it. Considering "frequent" guest in our house, the bed cannot sleep 2 pax & it feels kinda hollow in the middle when you sit on it. I told Rodman i might grab a comforter to overlay the sofa so it adds to the tenderness of the bed when u sleep. We also agreed tat this will serve a max 2 years before we invest in a more comfortable bed for our guest.

There were some ridiculous purchase Rodman & i made that we absolutely agree though. One such is this 100Kg ++ granite stone that is actually a bench for parks but we got it anyhow as a TV console or the Living room.

So far no one actually agree that it looks anywhere outstanding but Rodman & adore the rusty finish on the bench legs, even if it flakes rust like nobody's business when u accidentally brush against it. The salesperson assure us that the Rust were intentionally casted and that the metal legs will rust no further. Somehow i find it added alot of taste especially to our floor tiles.

1 main reason to choose this floor tiles is because i hate to see hair strands on the floor but knew they are unavoidable, it is not that i dont clean that often but i dont want to see ourselves as slave to the daily task of picking away at every strands we see on the floor. I also personally feel the tiles add a raw touch to the floor and that its a welcoming sign that you can sometimes ignore the sofa & chill on the floor, which is very cooling to the touch especially when the wind is in our favor.

The tall table was the very first furniture we purchase for the house. I had clear intention to recreate a starbuck at home so Rodman & i can enjoy a cup of coffee while the wind blew in our face & we can mock see the traffic along TPE especially during Peak hour.

We cannot avoid the busk of living in busy Singapore so at least we have this space here to remind us that among the fast pace, there is always time to sit back & laugh be grateful that we can slow down our pace as others egg on with the challenge in their lives.

If you cannot tell by now, we live in the very heart of TPE, with the next stretch of apartment at least an expressway width away. you will notice there are trees at the lower bottom of the window, which are the trees along the expressway surrounding 2-way traffic.

By night, Rodman opted for warm light for the house, so far it has been serving us pretty well, but i do foresee the day we will like to see some stuff as clear as day then this ambience might backfire. Fortunately this has not been encountered at the moment.

The kitchen is really the heart of our home. We fell in love with this design when the ID first suggested it in drawing. Now that it has materialize, we are loving the kitchen even more.

We are still short of purchasing 3 tall chairs to be place by the kitchen island so as to host friends, but already many are commenting how they cannot wait to host the next "MasterChef" in our very kitchen.

Rodman had wanted a casting iron stove such as those from Bosch but due to limitation of our fengshui reading, we were unable to do so. This 4 stoves from Elba is serving us pretty well so far.

Our service yard is like any other except we added the Ikea rack above the wshing machine so now there is space to hang the smaller laundry & some additional space to keep the cleaning materials.

The fridge was thanks to the additional kitchen space we got by hacking the walls. Rodman & i hated the mundane traditional dining area that the floor plan suggested this space was meant for hence we converted it to be part of the kitchen, making the kitchen wider & also reducing the need to worry about the size of the fridge when we made our purchase.

This was the stove & sink area before the reno was completed. The grey panel at the back damaged during the renovation has since been covered up with a mint green glass panel to prevent oil stain during cooking.

The corridor to the bedrooms are like any other, we are still awaiting the carpet from Taobao to arrived to be placed here, again for Fengshui reason.

Bathroom had minimal reno because govt was good, hahahha.... we added a glass panel for the bath area with sliding glass door.
A wooden shelf on top of the toilet bowl from IKEA meant to place some decorative & guest towel.
Toilet sink was from Hoe Kee, minimal cost (about 100++) and shaped like an ingot for auspicious purpose
Basin tap is from Taobao
Vanity quartz i black with crystal flakes as part of the renovation packaging
Lastly, the mirror is from IKEA again, matching the wooden shelf on its right.